Su Xiaobai inaugurates Pearl Lam Galleries’ new Dempsey Hill outpost

Hong Kong-based gallerist Pearl Lam has opened a second outpost in Singapore in Dempsey Hill. Courtesy of Pearl Lam Galleries

Hong Kong-based gallerist Pearl Lam has opened a second outpost in Singapore in Dempsey Hill. Courtesy of Pearl Lam Galleries

If the experts are to be believed, things aren’t looking too rosy for the global economy. Not that this is stopping Pearl Lam. In fact, the Hong Kong-based art dealer is feeling particularly bullish about the contemporary art scene. So much so that she has just opened her second Singaporean gallery space in the leafy grounds of Dempsey – a former British colonial army barracks – right across the road from Como Dempsey, Christina Ong’s ambitious collection of restaurants and marquee attraction, Dover Street Market.

Lam has turned the former officers’ mess hall into an airy gallery with narrow clerestories that let in diffused tropical light, white floor and pastel-hued walls – in other words, a perfect blank canvas upon which to display her carefully nurtured coterie of Young Turks and old guard artists whose work generate what she refers to as ‘meaningful cross-cultural dialogue’.

’Plump’, by Su Xiaobai, 2016

Her Rolodex is an absorbing mix of Asian and Western artists, among them Maarten Baas, and Jenny Holzer, but it’s her representation of the likes of Zhu Jinshi and Su Xiaobai that feels most relevant – both Chinese abstract artists who arrived in Berlin and Düsseldorf in the 1980s and 90s, and who immediately made waves for their dramatic synthesis of Chinese mores with, in Lam’s words, ‘an international visual language’.

The Dempsey gallery’s debut exhibition is ‘Luminescence’ by Su – a gorgeously austere new collection by the 67-year-old comprising entirely of oil, lacquer and linen pieces whose opacity glimmer with a quiet force that seems quite at odds with their blankness. The show ends 31 December, after which Zhu Jinshi will take over on 10 January for a short run until 5 March with an exhibition of new and old oil pieces.

The new space is being inaugurated with a solo exhibition of works by Chinese artist Su Xiaobai

The new space is being inaugurated with a solo exhibition of works by Chinese artist Su Xiaobai

Lam has turned the former officers’ mess hall into an airy gallery with narrow clerestories that let in diffused tropical light

Lam has turned the former officers’ mess hall into an airy gallery with narrow clerestories that let in diffused tropical light

Garden of Joyful Red, by Su Xiaobai, 2016

Garden of Joyful Red, by Su Xiaobai, 2016

The ‘Luminescence’ exhibition features Su’s oil, lacquer and linen works

The ‘Luminescence’ exhibition features Su’s oil, lacquer and linen works

Information

’Luminescence’ is on view until 31 December. For more information, visit the Pearl Lam Galleries website

Thank you for registering to the newsletter

Please keep me up to date with special offers and news from Wallpaper*. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Please keep me up to date with special offers and news just
by email from carefully selected companies. Your personal details will not be shared with those
companies - we send the emails and you can unsubscribe at any time.